Back on a river

What with trips, an unusually cool spring (which I'm not complaining about), prodigious amounts of pollen, etc., it had been quite a while since I'd been paddling.

So I was glad to be able to get back in the kayak seat last weekend. 

In addition to some remarkable wildlife sightings (more about this later), the flowers were pretty spectacular. Lots of bluebonnets along the roads leading to our put-in, and then these lovely "arrangements":

I was particularly taken with the vibrantly colorful poppies...

At the other end of the size scale, I enjoyed these lovely little blue guys, too...

I didn't see nearly as many turtles as on our last paddle, but this rather healthy specimen has to be one of the largest I've ever seen on our local rivers:

But that's not the wildlife I was referring to above. 

You'd be right in guessing that birds needing that large a nest would be impressive specimens. And indeed they are. Our national bird, in fact.

These are two juveniles that haven't quite learned to fly yet. (Henry has a better picture of one of them flapping his/her wings here.) Unfortunately we never saw the parents, but, what a treat to see the young 'uns!

Although the trip was a little longer than I usually like to take (justifying a very lazy recovery day on Sunday), it was great fun. The weather was perfect: air not too hot but river water just cold enough to be refreshing. And the spring river scenery can't be beat...